


the end of all things

by h311agay



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Drabbles, Grief/Mourning, major character deaths are stans and eddies, there are no real plot lines to these, they're mindless drabbles insipired by sad richie feelings, with a touch of canon divergence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-23
Updated: 2020-05-24
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:53:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24343084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/h311agay/pseuds/h311agay
Summary: Eddie dies in the caverns beneath the house. Richie lives, but is he really alive anymore?The "chapters" are just separate drabbles but they do all kind of tie in to each other because they all focus on Richie just kind of... existing in the aftermath of the battle against IT. No solid plot to any of the drabbles, just straight up word vomit of angst. I just wanted to write his grief.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier, Richie Tozier & Everyone
Kudos: 4





	1. when the day met the night

They dragged him away kicking and screaming. He didn’t care about the cavern starting to fall in on top of them; he didn’t care that they had to run and get to safety, because they were leaving Eddie behind. They  _ couldn’t _ leave Eddie behind. Friends don’t leave their friends behind. Friends don’t leave their friends to die. Eddie couldn’t die. He couldn’t. He just… couldn’t.

So Richie fought against them with every ounce of strength he had left in his body, bruised and sore and tired from fighting, from being thrown around. Parts of him that hadn’t begun to hurt with age were definitely hurting right now. He screamed out Eddie’s name; he could still see him even in the darkness that was separating them, even as debris and dust fell down around them. He could see Eddie laying there against the rock, and if they would just let him go get him and grab him. He’d carry him, all by himself if he had to. If Bill and Ben would just let go of him, stop dragging him, he could do it. He could get Eddie out. Everything would be okay.

They could still help him.

They reached the opening to the well, and Bill and Ben started shoving him up it. He screamed and clawed against them. His tears were blinding him and he was sobbing. “Please,” he begged, trying to push past them, but Ben was so much stronger than he expected and he was practically lifting Richie up into the well. “No, guys, please, please,” he cried, “STOP. PLEASE. LET ME GO BACK. I CAN GET HIM OUT! BEN! PLEASE!” He slammed his fists on Ben’s back and he heard him grunt, but Bill was beneath them, helping push them up, and he felt hands on his back, tugging at his shirt from above. He pressed his face into Ben’s neck and sobbed, “Please, Ben. Please let me go back for him. I-I can help him. I can h-help him. Please.”

But Ben didn’t put him down, and soon, he was wading through water underneath the Neibolt House. He didn’t want to move, he wanted to let the water pull him under, but the house was coming down and his friends were pulling him along, further and further away from Eddie who was laying alone in those caverns. Richie felt his stomach twist up, and could barely find the strength to stand on his own two feet when he was pulled out of the water and onto rickety wooden planks.

“Richie we need to keep moving!” Bill said, tugging on his arm and trying to get him to his feet.

“B-Bill, I can get him,” Richie said, trying to pull away, trying to go back to the well, but Bill yanked on his arm hard and Richie stumbled toward him. “P-please, please, Bill. Please, you don’t understand. I can help him, I can save Eddie. It’s okay, you just gotta trust me, please.”

“I’m s-s-sorry, Richie,” Bill said, a pained expression on his face. Ben returned and grabbed Richie, and together they began to pull him away. He kicked and screamed again, but he was so tired, waterlogged, just plain exhausted and worn out. Worn down. They dragged him through the house and out the front door, where they stood on the sidewalk and watched the house collapse in on itself. Richie begged for them to let him go, screamed Eddie’s name, thrashed in their grasps, but somehow they held onto him until silence came from the lot.

Richie dropped to his knees, gasping and wheezing for breath. His throat was raw and sore, like the rest of his body, but the worst pain was the one in his chest. His heart ached, feeling hollow and tight, and he wanted to reach right in and rip out his heart like they had done to Pennywise. He felt strong hands on his back, and he could hear the others exchanging words, but nothing made sense. He couldn’t understand what they were saying because his head was swimming.

Eddie had saved his life, and then, right in front of Richie’s eyes, was skewered like a kabob. He felt his stomach roll, and in seconds, he was puking on the ground in front of him. He felt more hands on his back, his arms, his head, but it didn’t matter, because none of those hands belonged to the man he loved, none of them were Eddie.

When Beverly had suggested they all go jump into the river to clean themselves off, Richie had kind of hoped he’d be too old to survive something like that, but he floated to the surface, somehow still breathing. Tears bit at his eyes again and he closed them, sighing deeply, before standing up and finding a rock to sit on. He sat there as his friends cleaned themselves off, absentmindedly scrubbing the blood on his glasses with the river water. All he could think about was Eddie. How he had just been about to tell Eddie he loved him, that the words were there, on the tip of his tongue, and then… 

He closed his eyes, Eddie’s blood in the crack of his glasses making him feel sick again, and a sadness that was settling deep in his bones made him feel heavy. He thought that if he were to get back into the water, the weight of his sorrow would actually drown him this time, that he’d sink to the bottom of this godforsaken river and  _ die _ . Because Eddie was dead, and alone down in the caverns where IT had resided for billions of years, and Richie had just  _ left him there _ .

There would be no viewing, no funeral, no closure. There would never be answers to Richie’s questions. Questions of what if? What if he had told Eddie when they were younger? What if he told Eddie when he saw him at the Jade? What if he told Eddie and Eddie had felt the same way and what if they had decided to leave Derry together and be together and what if all those nights where Richie had felt so  _ alone _ were all because all this time those nights were supposed to be with Eddie? And what if Eddie hadn’t died?

They were talking about Eddie, and Richie couldn’t handle it. He felt so sad and lost and like the life - the  _ happiness _ \- he had always dreamed of finding was  _ right _ there, and it had slipped out of his fingers like sand, and it was  _ gone _ . “You alright Richie?” Bill asked and Richie covered his face because, no, he wasn’t okay, and he began to sob again. Everything hurt,  _ everything _ hurt, and he couldn’t handle this, he couldn’t do it. How was he supposed to go on? For twenty-seven years he lived his life as a lie, hiding parts of it even from himself, always unhappy and just trying to fill the void he felt inside of him.

When he saw Eddie in that restaurant, even if the memories hadn’t all returned immediately, all the feelings had. He had seen Eddie, and he had known, instinctively, that  _ he _ was the reason that Richie Tozier had never been able to find love, because he had been hung up on a boy he hadn’t seen since he was a kid, a boy who never knew how Richie felt or what Richie was, but a boy had loved nonetheless, stronger than any other person he had ever loved in his life. He had seen Eddie, and saw the boy he had been in love with was now a man, and he had fallen in love with that man at first sight. So many things about all of them had changed over the years, but Richie’s love for Eddie had remained the same, unwavering and strong, and Eddie had been so much like he had as a kid. Loud and expressive, unapologetic for the things that came out of his mouth, and Richie had wanted to come clean right then and there.  _ “Eddie, I’m in love with you.” _

He felt his friends wrap their arms around him and hold onto his hand tightly, and he cried into Mike’s neck. When the wave of sorrow was finally done crashing down onto him, he was left feeling awkward and exposed, so he did what he always did when he was uncomfortable: he cracked a joke, which earned a weak chuckle from them all.

When he informed them that he had lost his glasses, he was actually relieved when they all parted away from him to look. He shielded his eyes with his hand again, and let a few more tears slip out. He was exhausted and just wanted to lay down.

The townhouse seemed different when they arrived, like a spell over the town had been broken and suddenly people were very aware of how strange the five of them looked, still damp and filthy, but at least the blood was gone. Richie dragged his feet to his room, where he fell face first onto the bed, more sobs escaping him now that he was in the privacy of his room. He clenched the blankets in his fists, wailing into the covers to muffle him, but he knew it would only do so much. He knew eventually, someone would make their way in to check on him, and he felt guilty, because it wasn’t just him who had lost Eddie, and he felt guilty, because he hadn’t felt pain this raw when he heard Stanely was dead - and Stan had been his  _ best _ friend, his  _ first _ friend - and because he didn’t want to be a burden. Hadn’t he always been the difficult friend? The uncontrollable, unpredictable one, whose loud mouth had always gotten them into trouble? He was the friend the group could do without; he was the one who should have died.

He eventually cried himself out, reducing himself to whimpers and sniffles, the occasional hot tear, but he just couldn’t sob anymore. He felt so empty and weak, and sleep was beginning to crawl into his mind, but then he heard the door open behind him.

“Richie?” It was Beverly, her voice soft and gentle. She gently sat down beside him after closing the door behind her, and reached out to rub his back. “Richie, baby, look at me,” she said, bringing her hand up to his damp and matted hair and stroked it encouragingly. 

He sniffled and slowly turned his head to look at her, but he couldn’t bring himself to meet her eyes; his face hurt from where his glasses had been pressing against it.

“You’re going to get through this,” she said, stroking his cheek.

“How do you know?” He asked, voice cracking. How could she possibly know he’d survive this? She wasn't the one in love with Eddie. Richie saw that she got the love of her life; she'd get to leave Derry with Ben, and they'd all live happily ever after, and Richie was going to return to California. He was going to spend his nights in a bed, drunk and alone. He was going to go out there and stand in front of a crowd and crack jokes like he hadn't just watched the person he had loved for over thirty years get brutally mauled in front of him and  _ die _ . He didn't know if he could do that anymore, stand in front of those crowds and lie. He didn't see a future or career in comedy anymore, because there was nothing worth laughing about anymore.

"Because you're strong," she answered.

Richie wanted to tell her she was wrong, but he was too tired to argue, and he let himself fall asleep there on the middle of his bed, with Bev’s hand on his face, and his heart heavy with despair.

Bill was the first of them to leave, and Richie wasn’t surprised. “I have to get back to Audra,” he said, “She’s probably worried half to death about me.”

Then it was Ben, “I have an important meeting coming up in a couple of days. It’ll take a couple of days for me to even look half-presentable,” he said.

Then it was Beverly. “I have a divorce to finalise.”

Mike came by the townhouses to check on Richie, but soon the days turned into weeks, and Mike stopped by, telling Richie he was going to be leaving Derry soon. Richie rolled over in his bed, the words like nails in a coffin. He was going to be swallowed whole by Derry, and no one was going to be there to help him. He wanted to reach out, ask for help,  _ “Please, I can’t leave. Eddie’s keeping me here. It hurts too much. Please don’t leave me, too, Mike. I need you.” _

Mike sat on the bed next to him and rubbed his back, and Richie cried. He rolled over and clung onto Mike’s arm and he tried to beg him to stay but Mike had spent twenty-seven years  _ staying _ and Richie couldn’t ask that of Mike.

Finally, Richie was alone. Alone with his thoughts and alone with his pain, and he felt like it was going to consume him. It ate away at him like flame ate at paper, burning him up and leaving him a pile of ash. He didn’t leave the town house for a while, just kept telling them to add more days onto his bill. Then one morning, he sat up, jittery from lack of sleep. He was alone. He was alone and there was no one there to stop him from going back to that house, going down the well, down into the cavern, and bringing Eddie out. He was going to get Eddie out.

He got out of bed and methodically got ready, even making himself take a quick shower to wash away the grime he’d accumulated from just laying in bed. He shoved some granola bars into his mouth and left the townhouses. He spent the morning buying supplies, the ones from when they went down as a group either broken or lost during the battle. He didn’t have a plan, but he’d figure it out or die trying, he supposed.

But when he arrived, the Neibolt house was gone. Entirely. When they had left all those weeks ago, he was certain that the house had simply collapsed in on itself, but now that he stood in front of the overgrown and empty lot where the house once stood, he realised that the house had also been a part of IT.  _ “Of course,” _ he thought bitterly. Why had he expected anything else? The house had been an extension of IT, the creation of the house was influenced by IT. The location had been everything, because the house had connected IT to Derry. With IT gone, so was the house.

And so was Eddie.

Richie sat on his knees in front of the empty patch of weeds and grass for a long time. A really long time. The moon was high and the air around him was cool enough that he was beginning to shiver. He had been waiting, hoping, praying, that something would happen, that the house would return. He even went so far as to beg IT to come back, but nothing happened. Nothing happened because this was real life now, with IT defeated, strange things would stop happening in Derry. Derry was normal now, and Richie just had to live with the fact that Eddie was truly gone.


	2. the dark of you

_ Richie was laying on a blanket in the grass, staring up at the clouds lazily drifting along. Next to him sat Eddie, who was leaning back on one elbow, munching on a sandwich. The breeze was cool and calm, and Richie felt light and fluttery.  _

_ "Eds," Richie said as he sat up, looking over the man in front of him. "I have something I have to tell you." _

_ "What's up?" Eddie said, turning to look at Richie and he was overwhelmed by the way Eddie’s grey eyes were reflecting the blue sky so brilliantly it was almost too much. He sucked in a shaky breath and reached out to touch Eddie’s cheek. _

_ “I’m in love with you,” he said, chest feeling tight as the words finally left him. Words he had wanted to tell Eddie since they were children. _

_ Richie watched Eddie’s expression soften, and felt him press his cheek into Richie’s hand more. “Richie,” Eddie said, voice thick with emotions, a small smile gracing his lips. “Richie, I --” He choked, and Richie watched in horror as a look of confusion and pain crossed Eddie’s face. Richie felt himself fall backwards, head smacking hard off of something solid, damp and cold. He groaned and blinked away the stars in his vision. Eddie was sitting on top of him, his expression changing to one of fear and agony. Above them, the beautiful blue sky was gone, replaced by jagged stalactites that loomed and threatened to fall as the cave walls shook. Tears welled up in Eddie’s eyes, “Richie?”  _

_ Richie saw the claw protruding from Eddie’s chest, dark with blood. He tried to sit up and grab Eddie’s hands, but the claw pulled him up and away and he heard Eddie scream in pain. “EDDIE!” _

Richie sat up in his bed, screaming Eddie’s name still. In his ears, Eddie’s cry for help echoed until he thought he was going to go mad. He brought his knees to his chest and covered his ears with his hands, sobbing so hard he shook. How many years had it been now since he watched Eddie die? Richie couldn’t remember, even though he remembered a lot of things now.

He wished he could forget everything like he had before, at least then he had the desire to get better. It was easier to move on when you couldn’t remember. Richie had tried a lot of things to try and forget, but none of them seemed to work anymore. Drinking didn’t work, drugs didn’t work, not even trying to sleep it away worked.

It was at Beverly and Ben’s wedding when Beverly pulled him aside and told him she thought he needed therapy. He wanted to argue that he tried therapy before, before they had returned to Derry to fight, and that it had never helped. He tried cocktails of medicines and they never worked. Why would anything work  _ now _ , when it had been proven time and time again by his past that he would never be able to forget. Even when he  _ had _ forgotten, his soul hadn’t. There was only one way to shut down the pain in his brain.

It was - thankfully - not long until his phone alarm went off. He sighed, feeling achy and empty, and uncurled himself from his position on the bed to shut the alarm off. He dragged himself into his bathroom where he methodically brushed his teeth and combed his hair. He grabbed the bottle of bills out of his cabinet and shook some out into his hand. After swishing some saliva around in his mouth, he popped them in and swallowed them down hard. A therapist had led to a psychological evaluation, which led to him taking a cocktail of drugs again just to help get him through the day. He didn’t think they worked because he had always just lived his life in the form of a forced routine. Wake up, make himself look presentable, eat food even if he wasn’t hungry, slap a smile on his face and step out the door. Hold it together until he was home and then drown his sorrows over a bottle of bourbon, and then fall asleep drunk and alone in his bed.

He had been doing it for the last two decades of his life, so what was so different about now?

Eddie, it was Eddie that made this different. The last two decades were hard enough when he couldn’t even remember why he felt so sad, but now he not only remembered, but had more added to it. His stomach churned as he remembered the smell of Eddie’s blood, and he barely made it over the kitchen sink before he vomited.


	3. hold onto happiness

He wasn’t sure why he had agreed to do this. Did he still have time to pull out, to turn around and pretend that what was about to happen was not really happening? He gripped the steering wheel tightly as he sat in the parking lot of the Derry Townhouses. Why was he here? Why was he back in this cursed fucking town? The clown was dead, and with IT, Stan and Eddie. They had all left for good this time, they had agreed, but when Bill had reached out to him, asking if he would come to a memorial for Stan and Eddie, five years after their deaths, he had said yes without hesitation. Now, he was hesitating.

It hadn’t quite been five years since he’d last seen the rest of the Losers. Three years or so ago, Ben and Bev had gotten married, and he had accepted their invitation - of course he couldn’t miss  _ their _ wedding. The other remaining two of their group had also arrived, and even though Richie had been so,  _ so _ happy for his two friends and their marriage, he couldn’t help but feel sad and hollow the entire time. Every time he thought about the five of them, those who lived, he was painfully reminded of the two that they had lost.

He sat in the car longer, pressing his forehead to the top of his steering wheel as he closed his eyes against the tears. It felt like his heart was cracking and shattering, turning into shards of glass, tearing his veins and lungs up. 

He had never gotten the chance to say goodbye to Stan, had never even gotten the chance to see the man his best friend had grown up into. He missed Stanely’s wedding, had never gotten to meet his wife, never got to see him graduate from college. Memories he had looked forward to celebrating with his best friend that never got the chance to exist because the curse over this town had made them forget. Forget each other. He had forgotten Stan, and when he finally remembered what it was he had forgotten, Stan was taken away from him. Dead, before he even remembered his name.

It wasn’t fair. It was cruel and harsh, and he hated the bullshit letter he had received from Stan. He sat back and punched his steering wheel, making the horn sound, startling a woman who had been leaving the Townhouses. He gave her an apologetic look and sank in his seat.

Stan had been  _ strong _ and  _ brave _ and that letter was a load of fucking bullshit. All he wanted was one last chance to see Stan, to see that he had grown up to be the amazing and brilliant man Richie knew he would have been.

He closed his eyes and sighed.

Eddie,  _ oh fuck _ , Eddie. Tears leaked out from underneath his lashes and he let out an uneven breath. His nights were plagued with nightmares about Eddie and about his death, an inescapable memory that haunted him worse than anything else ever had. He knew, instinctively, the words Eddie had been about to tell him. “Richie, I--”

_ I love you _ .

He groaned and covered his face with his hands. He couldn’t bring himself to face the others in this state. All he could think about were Stan and Eddie, and how much he had loved both of them, and how much he had just wanted them in his life. He wanted all the Losers, but Stan was his  _ best _ and  _ first _ friend, and Eddie had been the absolute love of his life. He believed the same about him to be true for them, and now, he had neither of them and he never would again.

He heard a tapping noise on his window and he jumped, uncovering his face and glaring at the person on the other side. He realised after a moment that it was Mike. 

He sighed and stepped out of his car and Mike gave him a small smile before holding his arms out for a hug. Richie tried to force out a smile, but he knew how awkward and out of place it must have looked on him. He didn’t have a lot to smile about anymore, so it was an unpracticed expression, the only smiles he was truly used to anymore were bitter ones. He accepted Mike’s hug, and honestly kind of appreciated it. It had been a long time since someone had held him in any meaningful kind of way.

“You look good, Mike,” Richie said as the parted, patting him on the shoulder.

“You look like you’ve been better,” Mike replied, forehead creasing in concern.

Richie shrugged, “I make it day to day, so there’s that.”

He walked behind Mike with his suitcase in one hand. In the lobby were the other three of them, sitting on the couches and chatting casually. Beverly let out a noise and came over to hug Richie when she saw him, and he hugged her back carefully. He tried to smile at her when she flashed him one, but just like the smile for Mike, it felt wrong on his face. “Richie, it’s been too long since I’ve seen your beautiful face,” she said, kissing him on the cheek.

“Me? Beautiful? I’ve looked in a mirror before, Bev, pretty sure you’re lying.”

She chuckled, “You still doing stand up? I haven’t seen you on any tours or the TV lately.”

“Uh, no,” he said, clearing his throat awkwardly.

“What? Why not? You seemed to really be crushing it out there on stage.”

“Well, it’s kind of hard to spend hours making other people laugh when you don’t feel much like laughing yourself.”

“Are you still seeing a therapist?”

“Once a week, yeah,” he said. “And I’m on some new antidepressants, but,” he shrugged, not feeling like there was much more to say on the topic.

She stroked his cheek, frowning. “Why don’t we go somewhere and talk, Rich?”

“There isn’t much to talk about,” he said, trying to summon a smile, but he knew it wasn’t coming across as authentic just by the look Beverly gave him. “I’m going to go unpack.”

Richie didn’t know what to expect from the memorial, but sitting on a picnic blanket in the middle of the park wasn’t quite it. He felt like he was back in his dreams and that set him on edge; he felt jittery and exposed, like any second now the clown would return. Maybe that was what he wanted, for IT to return, because maybe then it could be that nothing he had experienced these past five years was real, and Stan and Eddie would both still be alive. Bill was speaking, but Richie was only partially listening, watching an ant crawl across the edge of the blanket on the grass.

He looked up when he heard Bill starting to give a speech about Stan, which led into a speech about Eddie. One by one, the others began to give their own speeches, until Richie was the last of them to contribute something. They were all looking at him expectantly, and he swallowed nervously, looking back down at the blanket.

“I don’t know what to say,” he said quietly.

“Just whatever is in your heart, Richie,” Bill said, patting his knee.

“You don’t want to know what that is,” he mumbled.

“Never knew you to be one to hold back,” Beverly said. “You were always the first one ready to open his mouth and speak.”

“Yeah,” he said, voice hard and bitter, “Well, people can change.”

“Richie…”

“Fine, want to know what’s in my heart? I’m fucking mad, okay? I’m mad at Stan for fucking killing himself and I’m mad that he wrote that fucking bullshit letter. He says he wasn’t strong enough to face IT but we all know that was just a fucking lie, because he said that before but he still did fought with us. I  _ know _ he could have fought alongside us, but he took the fucking easy way out, and now I’ll never get to see him again, or meet his wife. I missed him graduating college and meeting Patty and getting married. I missed everything you look forward to being a part of in your best friend’s life. I didn’t even get to say  _ goodbye _ to him,” he spat. “And it fucking hurts.”

“And I bet if he had been there with us, we wouldn’t have fucking lost Eddie, and that hurts me so much more than losing Stan and does that make me a bad friend? Does that make me a shitty person? Because it fucking feels like it, but I can’t help that thinking about Eddie causes this dull throb in my entire body and I feel empty and hollow, like someone reached inside of me and scooped out everything that made me, me.”

“I hate that we have to sit here, two fucking people short and you’re all going in a circle talking about how great they were as people but we didn’t even  _ know _ them anymore, and that just fucking hurts more, because do any of you have any idea how important they were to me? I love all of you guys, don’t get me wrong, but I dream about Eddie every goddamn night. I haven’t had a moment of peace since he fucking died and I’m losing my fucking mind over it. I loved him, I was  _ in love with Eddie _ and I can’t help but think about all these what-ifs and it fucking  _ hurts _ . I’m so sick of being sad and angry but I haven’t felt anything else but anger and sadness since I moved away from Derry as a kid.”

“Richie,” Beverly said softly, “Have you talked to your therapist about this?”

“Have I talked to my therapist,” he scoffed, rolling his eyes, “What do you fucking think, Bev?  _ Yes _ , I have talked to my therapist about this, and the four different ones I’ve had before the current one. But I can’t really tell them ‘yeah so I fought the embodiment of fear itself back when I was thirteen years old and that was really fucking traumatic but a couple of years ago, my friend, who I had completely forgotten existed, called me up and told me the fucking clown was still alive, so I went back to my cursed home town only to find out my best friend in the whole world - who I also forgot existed for twenty some years - was dead. And then I got to watch the love of my life get brutally skewered and  _ die _ and then I just had to leave his fucking body laying in a cavern.’ Yeah, I think they’d probably involuntarily admit me if I told any of them all that.”

Silence fell over them and Richie sighed. “And I’m just angry at myself, because you lost them both, too, but I can’t get over it. I’ve always been angry and bitter and lately it feels like there’s no fucking reason for anything anymore.” He stood up and crossed his arms protectively, slouching forward some. “I’m going for a fucking walk.” He turned on his heels and started walking away before any of them could protest. He was both relieved and hurt when none of them came after him. He walked aimlessly, but he knew there would come a point where he had to stop, and that point came when he walked up onto the wooden bridge above the river. He walked up to it, placing a hand on it. The wood was rotting and going soft, but the old carving he’d put there as a young child was still there, fading despite him going over it only five years ago. 

He ran his thumb over the E, heart clenching tightly and tears burnt at his eyes again. He was so tired of being sad and hurting, but he just couldn’t move on, just couldn’t get over it. It wasn’t fair, he thought again. It wasn’t fair.

“It’s not fair, you’re right,” came a voice from behind him and he jumped, a startled yelp escaping him. He calmed down when he saw Ben, a soft expression on his face.

“Jesus fucking Christ, Haystack, scared the absolute shit out me.”

“Sorry,” he said sincerely, kneeling on the road beside Richie. “It’s funny, how you and I relate this area to different experiences. I always remember the day Henry carved me up when I’m near this bridge, but you…” He reached out and traced his finger over the letters Richie had carved into the bridge. “I do remember seeing these here as a kid,” he said softly. “I never realised it was put there by you.”

“Yeah,” Richie said. “Wasn’t really trying to make it obvious.”

“Why didn’t you tell us?”

“Tell you what? That I was a faggot? Come  _ on _ , Ben, you’re not that dumb.”

“We wouldn’t have turned you away,” he said softly, and Richie felt his heart clench again.

“Well, it doesn’t matter now. Eddie’s dead,” he said bitterly, the words tasting like bile in his throat. “I never even got to tell him.” His voice cracked and the dam broke. He dropped his head to his chest and started to cry again. “And I don’t know why I’m so hung up on this.”

He felt Ben wrap his arms around him, and he leaned desperately into the hug. “Love can have powerful holds on people,” Ben said into his hair. “For twenty-seven years, I felt the same kind of longing and pain you felt, and I’m so sorry you didn’t get to have your happy ending, Richie. I think about him all the time, and I wish we didn’t have to leave him down there.” He tightened his hold and Richie could hear the tears in his voice. “I should have helped you bring him up, it  _ haunts _ me, and I’m so sorry I didn’t let you have that. I’m so sorry he’s gone. I’m sorry.”

They knelt there on the ground next to the bridge for a while, crying and holding each other. Eventually they both calmed down, and Richie pulled himself from the hug, taking his glasses off to rub his eyes. He sniffed, and then coughed some before sniffing again. “I’m happy for you and Bev,” he said, voice shaking. “Honestly, I am. I’m just so broken up about this. I think… I think in another lifetime he and I really could have been happy together. And I just feel like a loser because I can’t let go of him.”

“Of course you’re a loser, Richie. We’ve always and will always be losers,” Ben said, reaching up to rub Richie’s back, and Richie couldn’t help but chuckle slightly. It was a strange feeling; he couldn’t remember the last time he had actually laughed. “There he is,” Ben said, sliding his hand up and around Richie’s shoulders. 

Richie sighed and reached back up to trace the letters he had carved into the bridge so long ago. “We should get heading back. I should probably apologise to everyone.” Ben got up the ground with what seemed to be ease, but when Richie tried to stand, he found his knees had stiffened up and he couldn’t. “Uh… Ben, I need help getting up.”

Ben chuckled and held his hand down to Richie, “Getting old, Trashmouth?”

“Oh shut the fuck up,” Richie said, taking Ben’s hand and pulling himself up with a grunt, “You are, too, don’t deny it.” He brushed his knees off once they were standing, wincing at how tender they were.

Ben pat his back before they set off back toward the park, “Oh yeah, noticed I can’t sleep on my left side anymore. Whole left arm will be useless the next day, numb and tingly, and Bev’s been noticing pain in her hips when the weather’s supposed to be bad.”

“God, growing old fucking sucks.”


End file.
